Stocking And Can I Have Shrimp?

Hi, I'm new-ish to fish keeping (had a 180 tropical tank just over two years ago which after my initial newbie error of adding fish too soon was eventually successful but had to rehome due to house sale)

I've now got a 70l tank (not as big as I'd like but the biggest I have space for) which came complete with led lighting and filter which apparently according to the manufacturers literature runs at 1100l/hr (sounds too good to be true)

I did fish less cycling then added plants and after about 2 months have been gradually adding fish. I currently have
2 x khuli loach
2 x julii Cory
3 x albino cherry barb
6 x cardinal tetras
1 x bristle nose plec (tiny, only about 2cm long)

I before I got the cardinals and the bristle nose the ammonia, nitrate and nitrite were all zero but ph 8.2 (I have a real trouble with ph where I live, I do source fish from a local supplier with high ph and I use ph down but have never managed to get it below 8. )

I was hoping to get two or three rams as feature fish as all the others are small, plus perhaps some pentazona barbs - will this be too much for the tank? Also I am interested in shrimp, could these be added to my tank too?

I've attached a photo of my tank currently too......

Many thanks in advance.

Colin has beaten me too it  But rather than retype all this lot (he posted while I was typing) it'll just re-inforce what Colin said.


First I would say stop using the pH down. It sounds as though you have hard water and also a high KH (carbonate hardness). This buffers the water and stops the pH changing. But not only that, fish that like lower pH also like water with few minerals in, and when you add the pH down you add more chemicals to the water, the opposite of what is needed.
If you want to lower the pH you also need to lower the KH. The way to do this is by mixing your tapwater with RO (reverse osmosis) water; that is water from which all the minerals have been removed. But you would need to use the exact same mixture at every water change of the fluctuating levels would harm the fish.


Re the fish you have, before getting any other species, you need to get more cherry barbs, kuhli loaches and cories of the same species as the ones you have. Both need to be in groups of at least 6. But the fish you have now put you at around 100% stocking. Even if you rehomed the cories (which probably grow a bit too big for a 70 litre tank) and got a couple more barbs and loaches, you would still be slightly overstocked.
It's not just about filtration capacity but space for the fish to behave naturally. Cories in particular need a lot of floor space which a 70 litre is unlikely to have.

Even if you has space, rams are not a good choice. They need soft acid water and temperatures higher than the rest of your fish.


As for shrimps, they add very little to the bioload so you could get some of them. I think that even the smaller species such as cherry shrimps should be OK with the fish you have. Or you could look at the larger amano or ghost shrimps. Whichever you decide, you need a group of them, and the tank should have some cover for the shrimps to hide in. They have to shed their skins to grow and until the new skin hardens they are very vulnerable to being eaten. They need to hide away somewhere during this time. It could be a cave or a dense plant.

Ah, oversized internal explains it.

I have 6 Cherry barbs (2m:4f) and the males are a deep cherry colour and keep displaying to each other and the barbie girls by flaring their fins and 'dancing' round . This is great behaviour to watch. They 'should' mix in with the albinos.

You can test your KH and GH by one of these:



RO water costs £1.40 for 10litres at my LFS.... but I use rain water from a water butt. Works fine for me. It's not at all complicated. 5litres of rain water + 5litres of tap water + dechlorinator and I'm good to go. This halves my GH (down to 8º) and halves my KH as well.

As for a feature fish, it might be best to find out what your GH and KH are first to see if you're going to try and reduce it. If you decide to reduce your GH to (say) 10º then a Banded Gourami might be something to consider.

You dechlorinate for the amount of tap water.

But you need to know that your rainwater is free of contaminants. If you live in an area with air pollution, I wouldn't use it. If you use roof run-off, make sure the roof is clean. If you live in an agricultural area where they spray the fields, that is another possible source of contamination.


In the CC, you can't add julii cories because they are not in the fish profiles. I see that you used panda cories instead, but you need to increase the number in the CC to reflect the fact that juliis are bigger than pandas and 2 juliis will have a bigger bioload than 2 pandas.

I saw albino cherry barbs for the first time a couple of weeks ago. They were lovely looking fish.

You might get away with just two more of those fish. Cories really prefer 6+ but with the juliis being among the larger ones, I'm not sure they'd fit in a 60cm long tank.

Shrimps will be OK as they add very little to the bioload. Though you probably won't get many babies surviving as the fish you have will most likely eat them. The adults should be OK.